when electric cars can cover 6-700 miles on a single charge and recharge anywhere with a socket in around 15 mins (which is the range I can get from my Mondeo and about the time it takes to refill an empty fuel tank) id be up for trying electric cars. till then, theyre not much use to me as there have been times ive needed that range and refill time.
If these high density super capacitors prove to really be 1000x better than current ones then I think the EV churn of cars may pick up pace from the manufacturer.
My concern with it all is the pollution involved in making the batteries. Yes the car themselves are Eco Friendly once built.
But I always hear about the environmental impact of the battery production being greater than that of an ICE vehicle. However i genuinely don't know if this is really the case. Especially as Tesla are investing heavily into a new Battery Production plant.
It does seem more sensible to have one power station than hundreds of thousands yet the storage of that power produced on board the car in a "chemical" format seems likely to pollute.
Perhaps we need a rethink on clockwork and compressed air.
Many of the car makers are trying to be seen to use green energy to construct cars, Ford have wind turbines at Bridgend and Dagenham, and they talk about it powering the whole of the engine production. The BMW i3 we have on order is made in a green energy powered facility, and the i3 carbon fibre body cloth is made in a factory in the USA powered by hydro.
CNN: The electric stars set to light up 2017
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/23/motorsport/gallery/2017-new-year-electric-cars/index.html
Some oddballs and some exotica here...
I understand that 12% of Nissan Sunderland plant's energy needs are met by the (feckin' huge) on-site wind farm. It's not to put "green energy" into cars, it's because it's relatively cheap to do with Government grants...
Also keeps manufacturing costs down
I know, I specialise in Lean and Supply Chain recruitment
Hmm. I might need to keep you in my phonebook
My concern with it all is the pollution involved in making the batteries. Yes the car themselves are Eco Friendly once built.
QUOTE]
but are they? no one actually knows exactly where there power comes from (ie which power station) so it could be a huge dirty coal plant or some eco friendly wind farm somewhere.
as for the battery life and running costs, Nissan claimed, when they were launching the leaf, that the batteries (at a cost of £5k+ from memory) would need replaced something like every 5 years. now, taking the cost of fuel (and obviously its storage in the case of batteries) I did some pretty basic (I'm not a complicated sort of bloke) maths breaking it down to the costs for the average 10k miles per year car user and it worked out that at 40mpg there was still a slight cost advantage over a pre set cycle (Nissan were claiming you would be able to pay for an amount per week/month to 'hire' the batteries, so the cycle would be however long you kept the car under these circumstances) with a regular car, over the cost of running a Leaf, ignoring the range issues and time to recharge them.
then if I were to take into account the cost difference between the Leaf (they were claiming £20k to buy at the time) and its petrol/diesel equivalent (size wise) the Nissan Almera (or you could have gone for a focus, Astra or any competitor) with similar (according to the info I had at the time) for about £7k less. so poor range/recharge rates, £7k more to buy, daily running costs pretty much the same, ok regular engines need a service now and again (2-3 over 3 years) which WONT (unless its MB dealer prices) cost £7k between them. THAT is the main reason theyre not taking off as fast as they could.